


Sunrise

by ArtisticVicu



Series: Assorted Prompt Writings [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Character Death, Late rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticVicu/pseuds/ArtisticVicu
Summary: All she had to do was get away. If she got away for long enough, he'd come to her rescue. She knew he would. She just needed to give him time.
Series: Assorted Prompt Writings [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684657





	Sunrise

She had no proof he would come for her, no guarantee that his words had been anything more than lies, but still she ran with the belief he would come to her rescue. The density of the trees started to give way to fields. The scattering of trees that remained were her only protection from the things they were firing at her.  
  
The thunderous sound of hooves was growing louder. It was only a matter of time before they overtook her.  
  
She didn’t recognize it at first, mistaking it for the forest or something on her person. But when there was a familiar snort from somewhere behind her right shoulder, she realized what she was hearing was wings. There was the sound of snapping wood and leather, and a horrendous sound she didn’t look back to investigate. Instead, she reached for the pegasus that started running with her and grabbed at its harness.  
  
It was awkward and painful as she tried to run and pull herself up at the same time. Her entire side flared in pain when it connected with the pegasus’s side harshly. The pegasus kept running, wings ready to carry its weight back to the clouds, but she didn’t dare ask it to stop. Not when she didn’t know how close the danger was.  
  
She got an arm over the creature’s back just before the wings out of sheer luck but she couldn’t get her legs up. What strength she did have wasn’t enough to pull herself up.  
  
Her hand was slipping.  
  
She tried regaining purchase on the far side of the harness. The pegasus jerked under her as her grip slackened and for one, fear filled second, she was falling away from the creature’s back.  
  
A hand grabbed her wrist and yanked her onto the pegasus’s back. She barely had a chance to register what happened before the chest beneath her rumbled with a shout. “Eun!”  
  
It felt like the pegasus bucked and she grabbed at the material covering the chest, clinging even as a solid arm pinned her in place. The switch from ground to air was uncomfortable on the back of the pegasus but the scent from the material and chest and arm erased her discomfort. “Trax.”  
  
“You’re safe now,” he soothed, voice a low rumble in his chest. “I’ve got you.”  
  
She went lax in his hold even as her hands tightened around the fistfuls of fabric. “I’m so glad it’s you.”  
  
Silence settled over them, or maybe she had simply passed out. When she opened her eyes again, the sky seemed to be missing a number of stars.  
  
“Elizabeth?”  
  
He always spoke her name with such care, like it would break if he said it too harshly. And maybe at one point it would have but now it seemed more precious than fragile.  
  
“I’m ok,” she offered in lieu of the non-question. “Did I fall asleep?”  
  
“Only for a few minutes,” he assured her. “The sun should be rising here shortly.”  
  
She tensed in his arm, fear filling her chest as she grabbed at the layers of fabric against his chest. “Trax,” she started, her voice wavering, but his hand buried itself in her hair, rubbing at her skull in a gesture she recognized.  
  
“It’ll be alright,” he assured her softly. “The sun can’t harm me now.”  
  
The soothing gesture did nothing for the confusion and panic that surged forward. “What? How? What do you mean?”  
  
His soft expression gained an edge of pain. “It is nothing-”  
  
“Vertraxus, don’t you dare say it’s nothing I need to be concerned about!” He blinked at her, as was his normal reaction when she used his full name. “The sun is poison to you! If it’s not going to affect you, then that means-” a sob choked her- “that means-”  
  
She pressed her face into his chest, crying as she felt his arm press against her back, his hand still in her hair. If the sun wasn’t going to kill him, that meant he would die before the sun could do it. He curled around her but he didn’t say anything. Not till the sobs had petered out.  
  
“Eli,” he coaxed, drawing her exhausted attention away from whatever in between she had been staring at. “Look.”  
  
She looked first up at his face before looking out to the horizon where his gaze rested. There was a strip of bright sky against the dark land below as the sky above shifted in colors from the darkest blue above their heads to a brilliant bright color she had no name for. On the back of the soaring pegasus, she watched as the sun broke the horizon.  
  
“I had always wanted to show you the **sunrise** from above the clouds,” he offered, voice soft and barely a rumble in his chest. She felt oddly heavy, cold, like the night had taken the heat from her body and the sun wasn’t giving her the warmth she needed to feel. “But I never could.” His arm tightened around her as she sagged a bit more into his chest. “‘Then be the day you show your heart the breaking sun be the day your heart knows no more.’” She knew those words, somehow. She couldn’t remember why, though. “I had always believed it was to me and only me.” There was a pause, one that held the promise of more words, and she waited. “But then I met you.”  
  
Oh. That’s right. She had read it once. He hadn’t liked it when she had but at the time she had taken pleasure in harassing him. But no matter how much she annoyed him, he had always been so kind.  
  
“Eli.” She frowned as she opened her eyes. Strange. She couldn’t remember closing them. “You know I love you, right?” She nodded. Or, more accurately, she tried to. Her head was heavy but her tongue seemed heavier. “With all my heart,” he muttered into her ear, the words weighed down with emotion.  
  
It took far too long for her to realize those words had been filled with tears. She wanted to reach up, to touch his face and reassure him she wasn’t going anywhere, that she was just tired and needed to sleep, but he held her so carefully despite how tightly he was gripping at the fabric of her shirt.  
  
The blink felt like it took an hour. When she could see again, she didn’t understand the blotch of color on her dress. It stretched from her lower ribs all the way down to the middle of her thigh. She let her eyes close, wondering if the blotch of color was why he was crying.


End file.
